Posted
by
timothy
on Friday March 12, 2010 @07:40AM
from the extreme-unction dept.

judgecorp writes "Harriet Harman, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, has said that UK government ministers are 'taking action' to get Facebook to add a British child protection button (called CEOP) to its site. The move comes after the UK's Daily Mail withdrew allegations that teenagers on Facebook are continually pestered — though Facebook is still considering suing the paper. The campaign apparently ignores Facebook's assertion that it already has better child protection in place and the CEOP button would be limited to the UK."

Indeed. The word "liberal" has very different meanings on the opposite sides of the Atlantic. The traditional UK sense of Liberal was closer to (but not equal to) the US Libertarian. True UK liberals would legalise drugs and, probably, guns.

It is shocking how sexist she is and how much she gets away with "because she was a women."

Remember that sexism, by definition, can only be against women [wordpress.com] and that it's impossible for women to be sexist against men. Once you understand the standard feminist definition of sexism, things should make a lot more sense, whether you agree with it or not.

To top it all off, there's a condition that the government can put on your record making the information on your background check confidential to anyone. Including yourself. You can fail a background check and never you have failed one. The employer can't tell you you've failed, so if there's a mistake on your background check, it is impossible to get it remedied and your life is basically ruined.

In the UK the only "background checks" that are done by employers are those done for people who work with children & vulnerable adults; they are called CRB [wikipedia.org] checks. Both times I've had one done, I got a copy. Other employers don't get to do 'background checks' and even if they were allowed, you could use the data protection act to find out any information they hold on you. In short, your post doesn't apply to the UK.

The paper got a story from a guy who did a quick-and-dirty unpublished study on how quickly they were approached on a different site entirely, the DM ghostwrote it into a different story entirely about Facebook, ignored the original author's corrections, and put it up on the front page.

It is Harriot Harman who argues that being drunk is no defence for men accused of rape (fair enough)... but strangely, she also argues that woman cannot be held to have 'consented' if they are drunk.

She was also responsible for the repeal of the defence in murder cases of 'provocation', which was a defence used primarily by men (again, fair enough). Strange then that at the same time, Harriot brought in a new defence which allowed abused women to claim long term abuse by the husband, as a defence if they then murdered their partner - rather than, say, leave them.

She goes on to argue that the low conviction rate of alleged rapists is proof, in itself, that too many men are getting away with rape (might be true), but fails to acknowledge the alternative explanation, that too many false allegations of rape are being submitted by women.

For a moment I thought: "Huh, a brown-skinned asian, that's rather unusual!"

Then I got it: in UK, when you say "Asian", you mean Indian or Pakistani. Technically, that is not wrong; but in most other countries, I believe, if you say "Asian", everyone will think of a person from the Far East -- i.e., Japan, China, Korea. And even if you do say "Indian", you still have to specify: Indian as one from India, not the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

The point is that she is an official in the Labour government that has changed drivign laws to make it an offence not only to use your phone, but also to eat an apple in a car. Whilst on my lunch today, I saw a black and white Smart car with "CCTV" logos all over it with a Google-Streetview-style camera apparatus on its roof. Turns out that these are CCTV cameras designed to catch motorists talking on their phones, smoking, eating, etc with a view to prosecuting them.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7994449.stm [bbc.co.uk] as an example."Anyone seen driving while distracted - eating at the wheel, playing with the radio or applying make-up for instance - is filmed by the cameras.
Later, a letter is sent to the owner of the car, in many cases along with a fine.
Anyone caught using their mobile will be asked to pay £60 and have three points added to their licence. Fines could also be handed out to anyone who is thought to be driving without due care and attention, or similar offences. "

Whilst I appreciate that you shouldn't drive dangerously I'm hugely against the potential criminalisation of everybody by the Labour party.

It is true in so far as that is the situation for people today, but the law has already been changed and the changes are being phased in over the next year or so and will affect many more people.

For example, if you have an arrangement with other parents to give their kids a lift home with yours from an after school club more than once a month, you will have to personally apply to be vetted by the police. There were some incredibly high profile protests from authors earlier this year/late last year when it was revealed that if they regularly visit schools to give talks, they would have to be vetted too.

Much can be done in the name of the crown which couldn't/wouldn't be done in a Republic. Despite the fact I think Cromwell was pretty much worse than Hitler, the Commonwealth would have given Manip the things he said he wants.

That isn't exactly accurate. What you are talking about, I think, are the various and extensive powers (royal prerogatives [wikipedia.org]) which technically belong to the monarch, and are now exercised by the Prime Minister without requiring the approval of Parliament.

However you could abolish the monarchy without changing this one whit (and I'd argue this is exactly what would happen). Similarly you could reform this without abolishing the monarchy. The link between the two issues is historical, and really isn't relevant to a modern debate about whether to abolish the monarchy.

Then I got it: in UK, when you say "Asian", you mean Indian or Pakistani.

Well we can't call them all Indians because, as you point out, some of them aren't - there's Bangladeshis too. Last time I looked India is part of Asia. The only other people from Asia who were at all common in the UK at the time they started arriving were the Chinese, who already had a name[1]; what's more we already had the term Orientals to mean Vietnamese, Japanese and suchlike.

She goes on to argue that the low conviction rate of alleged rapists is proof, in itself, that too many men are getting away with rape (might be true), but fails to acknowledge the alternative explanation, that too many false allegations of rape are being submitted by women.

This is the same government that declared that any picture of a nude child is a criminal offence, EXCEPT when they do it in the airport through the strip-scanner machines, for which they gave themselves a waiver to force everyone through the virtual peep show. Because it's for our safety.